Last fall I had the pleasure of being a sponsor for a race in Dayton. The Orphan Love Run is a 5k put on by Apex Community Church that helps support a local family in their process towards adopting a child from China. This year the Zacharias' were the benefactors in the Orphan Love run. Then only a few short months later they brought their sweet Lucee home for the first time!
Ben and Brandee both walked independent paths to getting to the point of adoption but in November 2014 they came to the understanding that the Lord was calling them to adopt, and began the process towards international adopting. In their pursuits Ben and Brandee came across a file of a child in China that they could not quite forget. After much prayer and conversation, on June 9th, 2015 Ben and Brandee began the pursuit of their daughter Lucee. After about a month of sitting and waiting they were matched with Lucee in July 2015 and they were officially in the process of adopting her.
Finally, after home studies, paper work, visa issues, fund raising, more paperwork and month of waiting, Ben and Brandee were approved to travel in January 2016 to China to get their daughter. Ben and Brandee met Lucee for the first time on January 18th when they signed their final pieces of paper work to call Lucee theirs.
Lucee is so loved, not only by her earthly family but by the God of the universe. We are all orphans lost at the fall but we were not created to be alone. God has a plan for all of his children and it was been awesome to see this earthly adoption reflect His heavenly adoption of us.
